The Rainbow and the Rose (27 page)

I nodded. And then I hesitated while I gathered my wits together and composed myself. ‘You must be the nurse.’

‘I’m Sister Dawson,’ she replied. ‘Dr Turnbull brought me down here and said it would be all right if I slept here. I hope we didn’t wake you when we came in?’

I shook my head. ‘I never heard you. I thought you were going to sleep in the other room.’

She nodded. ‘We brought down his sleeping bag.’ She indicated it, draped over a chair. ‘It’s a bit messy in there, though, and very cold. I thought I’d get a better night if I slept in the chair here, by the fire. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘
I
don’t mind,’ I said. ‘I’m only sorry if I woke you up. I didn’t know you were here. I just came in for a match.’ I reached out and took the box from the mantelpiece and
lit my cigarette. It helped to calm my nerves. And then I recalled my manners and offered her the packet from the pocket of the dressing gown. ‘I’m so sorry. Will you have a cigarette?’

‘Thanks.’ She took one, and I lit it for her. She glanced at her wrist-watch. ‘Half past twelve,’ she said. ‘I thought you were sleeping through.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I woke up.’

She frowned, evidently puzzled. ‘What time are we taking off?’

‘If the weather’s at all possible I’d like to get into the air soon after six, and be down at the Lewis River at dawn,’ I said. ‘I set the alarm for five.’ I crossed to the window, and pulled the curtain aside. The wind was very strong, but the rain had stopped. There was an overcast at about two thousand feet, eight-tenths, but behind it there was a moon, and there were flying, fitful gleams of moonlight on the countryside. I stood looking out for a few moments, and then let the curtain fall and turned back into the room. I went and tapped the barometer; it had risen in the night, and was still rising. ‘It’s looking better,’ I said. ‘Was it raining when you came in?’

She thought for a moment. ‘No – it wasn’t raining then. It had been raining very hard before.’

‘Was there a moon?’

She shook her head. ‘It was quite dark.’

‘Well, it’s definitely better now. It’s nothing like the forecast, of course, but they don’t get any actuals down here from the south-west.’ This woman had been an air hostess, so I hadn’t got to explain things to her. ‘If it stays like this we shall be taking off soon after six. Did Dr Turnbull explain about the trip to you?’

‘Yes, sir. He told me that there’d be no cabin door, and we’d have to try and jump out on the strip while you held her against the wind.’

‘Is that all right with you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

I glanced at her. ‘You can’t wear those clothes.’

‘He gave me a ski suit and ski boots.’ She indicated them in a corner. ‘I’ll change into those for the flight. But I can’t help him at an operation in those. I’ll take this dress with me in a bundle. I’ve got a theatre gown with me.’

They seemed to have got their side of it all buttoned up. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’d better try and get a bit more sleep. I’m sorry I woke you up.’

She hesitated, and then said, ‘I thought you were sleeping through, sir, and I’d have to wake you.’

‘I thought I would,’ I said. ‘But I woke up.’

She frowned, evidently puzzled. ‘Dr Turnbull told me that you were very tired, and you’d taken a Nembutal.’

‘I did,’ I told her. ‘But it didn’t work.’

‘How much did you take?’ she asked.

‘Just one,’ I said.

‘A grain and a half, or three-quarters?’

‘A grain and a half.’

She frowned again. ‘Do you take it very often?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t suppose I take more than three or four a year. But they’re useful to have with you at a time like this.’

‘I can’t understand it,’ she said. ‘With a grain and a half of Nembutal you should be sleeping like a log.’

‘I had a bad dream,’ I told her.

She nodded. ‘Would you go to sleep if you went back to bed again?’

‘I’ll be all right,’ I said.

She stood in thought. ‘I’d better get you something. I saw some milk in the kitchen. Would you take a cup of hot cocoa if I can find anything like that?’

‘Don’t bother.’ She disregarded that, and went down the short corridor into the kitchen, very much the nurse. I heard
cupboard doors opening and shutting. ‘There’s Ovaltine here,’ she said. ‘You’d better have a cup of that. I’ll warm up some of this milk.’

It seemed that I was to have little say in the matter. A hot drink might not be a bad thing, anyway, if it brought me a few hours’ more sleep, for I was still all on edge and the coming flight would be a difficult one. The Auster was a very little aeroplane to fly at night with a full load in bad weather, especially when practically all one side of the cabin was removed. I would have to fly it manually on instruments, of course, over bad country with no lights or navigation aids. I didn’t want to start off all tensed up as I was then. Her cup of hot Ovaltine might quite well be the shot.

I threw some more wood on the fire and sat down before it. Presently she came back with a tray of two cups of the hot drink and a few biscuits on a plate. I took one cup and she took the other, and we sat together before the fire waiting for the drink to cool a bit.

‘Dr Turnbull said that you’d been a hostess,’ I remarked. ‘With Captain Pascoe.’

She nodded. ‘I was in his crew for about ten months, in AusCan. You know him too, don’t you?’

‘He taught me to fly,’ I told her, ‘back in the dark ages, in England. I’ve known him off and on since then.’

‘Is that why you came over here?’

I nodded. ‘How did you come to be in AusCan?’

‘I was trained at the Queen Alexandra Hospital, in Melbourne,’ she said. ‘Then I was on Surgical. Then about three years ago I got an itch to get out and go places – you know.’ I nodded. ‘AusCan like their senior hostesses to have hospital training,’ she said. ‘I put in for it and got it. I was with them for a little over a year.’

I smiled. ‘Get fed up with it?’

‘Well – yes. You get it out of your system after a time – just
serving meals and drinks. I’m back at the Queen Alexandra now.’

‘You heard about this, and came over?’

‘It was on the wireless,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d come over to see him in hospital. I never dreamed there’d be this difficulty in getting him out. I only heard about it when I got to Launceston.’

‘You’re Australian, I suppose?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘I was brought up in South Yarra.’ She glanced at me. ‘You’re English, aren’t you?’

‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘I emigrated out here when I got married, in 1946. I don’t suppose I’ll ever live anywhere else, now. One gets dug in.’

We sat sipping our hot drinks. Presently she said, ‘There was a woman in the hotel called Mrs Forbes. Did you meet her?’

‘She came here for a few minutes just before I went to bed,’ I replied. ‘She seemed rather a queer type.’

‘I think she’s mental,’ the nurse remarked.

I laughed. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘She was telling everybody that she was his daughter,’ she said, a little hotly. ‘Well, that’s just not true. On top of that she was telling everybody not to risk their lives by flying in to help Captain Pascoe.’

‘She came to tell me that,’ I said. ‘But she’s his daughter all right. At least, I think she is.’

She stared at me. ‘How can that be?’ And then she said, ‘At least …’ She stopped.

‘He was married a long time ago,’ I said. ‘In the last year of the First War. His wife was an actress and she left him and went over to America. She divorced him there, at Reno. But I think there was a daughter.’

‘That’s right,’ she said slowly. ‘There was.’

‘There’s a photograph here,’ I remarked. I put my cup down and got up, and showed her the photograph of Johnnie
and Judy in front of the rotary-engined fighter. ‘I think that was his wife.’

She glanced over her shoulder at it, but she did not get up; she had evidently seen it before. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘It didn’t last for long.’ There was a pause, and then she said, ‘He was so terribly young.’

I went back to my chair. ‘I don’t suppose he was much more than twenty-one.’

She nodded. ‘Anyway,’ she remarked with some satisfaction, ‘Dr Turnbull tore her off a strip all right, in front of everyone.’

I glanced at her. ‘The police sergeant told me something about that, over the telephone. Were you there?’

She nodded, smiling. ‘I’d only just arrived; I landed straight into it. I couldn’t quite make out what it was all about, at first. Dr Turnbull seemed to be in the minority, so I went in with him.’

‘The others were all saying that it was too dangerous?’

‘That’s right. The woman didn’t know what she was talking about. She seemed to be just spiteful.’

I took a drink from my cup. ‘I’m changing my opinion of Dr Turnbull,’ I said presently. ‘I didn’t think a lot of him at first. But I’ll say this for him. He’s got any amount of guts.’

‘I think he’s very good,’ she said slowly. ‘We were talking about the operation, what he’s got to do. I’ve never seen him operate, of course, but I think he’d be very steady …’ She glanced up at me. ‘I’ve seen so many young house surgeons,’ she said. ‘And of course, we talk about them in the sisters’ home. They seem to get into their stride after they’ve done a few major operations successfully – if they’re the right sort.’

‘Is he the right sort?’ I asked.

‘I should think he is. I’d rather see him operate on Captain Pascoe than that Dr Parkinson.’

I finished my drink, and put the cup down. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear you say that,’ I said. ‘All we’ve got to do now is to keep our fingers crossed and hope that I can put you out upon the airstrip.’ I crossed to the window and looked at the weather again. ‘It’s getting finer all the time. Thank God for that.’ I turned back from the window. ‘I think I’ll go back to bed now, and see if I can get a bit more sleep.’

‘Sit down there for a minute while I make your bed,’ she said.

‘Oh – that’ll be all right,’ I objected.

She went to the door. ‘Sit down there. You’ll sleep better if I make it.’ She was very much the nurse, and I had no option but to obey her. I sat down again in the warm glow of the fire; in the next room I heard her slamming the pillows about, and the rustle of sheets and bedclothes. Once she appeared in the doorway with a rubber hot water bag in her hand. ‘This was hanging behind the door,’ she said. ‘Shall I fill it for you?’

‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I never use one.’

‘Are your feet warm?’

I smiled. ‘Quite.’

She nodded. ‘All right. I shan’t be a minute now.’ She went back into the bedroom. She was an effective girl, I thought, and probably efficient at her job. She was evidently well impressed with the young doctor, as he was with her, and it occurred to me how very fortunate we were that she had happened to turn up at the right moment. Without a good surgical nurse at his side Dr Turnbull might well have been fumbling and immature, but with this girl beside him as he operated Johnnie Pascoe’s chances were a great deal better. A first-class nurse in the theatre, I thought, could almost certainly improve a surgeon’s skill by taking all irrelevant responsibilities off his mind. I felt that the surgical side of this thing now was probably as good as we could hope to get it. It only remained for me to get them to the Lewis River and land them safely.

The girl came back into the room. ‘All ready for you, sir,’ she said.

I got up and went into the bedroom, and she followed me. The bed was very white and clean and neat, just like a hospital bed, no wrinkle on the folded sheets or on the pillows. It was, in fact, just like being in a hospital because the nurse was waiting there to tuck me up. She took Johnnie Pascoe’s dressing gown as I slipped out of it and hung it up behind the door, folded his bedclothes over me and tucked them in professionally as I lay in his bed. Then she stood back. ‘All right now?’ she asked.

‘Quite all right,’ I said meekly. ‘Thank you very much.’

She picked up his alarm clock. ‘I’ll take this with me into the next room. Don’t bother about waking up – just let yourself sleep through. I’ll come and call you when it’s time to get up.’

She turned out the light and went out of his room, closing the door softly behind her.

I lay in the darkness, warm and very comfortable, thanks to this efficient girl. The hot drink was still warm inside me and my mind was at ease. The weather was improving and conditions for flying when I woke again would probably be a great deal better than I had anticipated. The wind about the house was less than it had been, and now there was a gleam or two of moonlight in the room through chinks in the curtains. There was a break coming in the weather, and it might well be sunny at dawn for a few hours. We had a good young surgeon and a first-class nurse, and everything was going to be all right.

I lay drifting into sleep, thinking about Johnnie Pascoe whose pyjamas I was wearing and about this nurse who had worked in the same aircrew for ten months in AusCan. The old Canadian senior pilot of the line, due for retirement before long, and the Australian nursing sister who had joined his crew as senior air hostess. Ten months together in a
D.C.6b, flying the Pacific route – Vancouver, Honolulu, Fiji, and Sydney. Crews in AusCan are rigorously controlled to prevent pilot fatigue. They fly no more than eight hundred and forty hours in any year; after each twelve hours of flying they must have twenty-four hours free of all duty. From Honolulu to Nandi Airport in Fiji takes about twelve hours, so that a rest there is obligatory; another eight hours flying takes the machine to Sydney. The schedules of the flights each week combined with the necessity to rest the crews necessitate a complicated system of crew changes; in AusCan crews are based at Vancouver and at Nandi in Fiji. For ten months I had lived in close association with this girl, on the flight deck over the great wastes of the Pacific, in the coconut groves and on the coral beaches of Fiji when we were resting as we did for four days out of every week. I had come to know her very well indeed.

She came to me in the Superintendent’s office at Vancouver Airport. For three years I had been flying the northern route, Vancouver-Frobisher-London. Now Jock McCreedy’s wife had had another baby and had come back to Vancouver, so that it was all rather difficult for him to go on on the southern route. I was unmarried so I didn’t care where I went, and the northern route had now become a track so well known and so well provided with navigation aids that it wasn’t necessary for me to stay upon it any longer. Nandi would suit me very well for my last year in AusCan; it was warm there, and closer to Tasmania, where I was thinking of retiring. We were reshuffling the crews to make these changes possible, and Bill Myers had lent me his office.